India-based steel giant Tata Steel has announced that it has shipped its one millionth ton of steel rails from its Scunthorpe plant in UK. It has taken seven years for Scunthorpe to reach this important milestone since converting its medium sections rolling mill to enable it to also produce rails.
According to Tata Steel's statement, in 2006 the company invested £130 million at Scunthorpe to produce 216-meter long rails as per customers' requests. Since 2000 more than £160 million has been invested in Tata Steel's advanced rail manufacturing facilities. There has been an increase in the quality of the steel bloom going to the rail rolling mills and a transformation in the manufacturing logistics to handle the new long rail products.